Washington: A World Bank report said on Friday that the South Asia has seen an accelerated job growth and a substantial decrease in poverty over the past three decades, adding that the region would be the largest contributor to the global workforce over the next two decades. More and better jobs are needed to sustain growth and reduce poverty.
According to the report, more and better Jobs in South Asia, the region—defined by the World Bank as Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka,—will need to add between 1 and 1.2 million additional jobs every month for the next twenty years, equivalent to about 40 percent of the increase in the global labor force. Reforms will have to be accelerated if the region is going to meet the challenge of providing better jobs for them.
“The key asset to South Asia is its people. South Asia has a young population and the second lowest female participation rate in the labor force. The demographic transition will result in more than 350 million people to enter the working age population over the next two decades,” said Isabel Guerrero, World Bank South Asia Vice President. “Creating jobs for them will contribute to growth, equity, and peace in the region.”
South Asia created nearly 800,000 jobs per month between 2000 and 2010. However, despite growth, the region is still home to the largest number of the world’s poor—a half billion people. Since labor is the primary asset of the poor, having more and better jobs is the key employment challenge facing the region?
“The number of additions to the labor market over the next few decades will result in a 25–50 percent increase over the historical average,” said Pablo Gottret, co-author of the report. “Going forward the region faces an enormous employment challenge, but its demography can help if countries choose to reform.”
Education is key to labor mobility. Education attainment remains low and well over 25 percent of the labor force in all countries except Sri Lanka lacks any education at all. More education facilitates labor mobility to more productive employment, from rural agriculture to rural-based industry and service jobs and from urban casual work to urban-based regular wage and salaried industry and service jobs.
“It’s not only the quantity of jobs but the quality of the jobs being created in the region that is relevant,” said Kalpana Kochhar, Chief Economist for the World Bank’s South Asia Region. “There has not been much change in the composition of employment, that is between casual laborers, the self-employed and regular and salaried wage earners, but there has been an increase in real wages and poverty reduction within these categories. However, the share of wage employment and high-end self-employment are stagnant.”
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